Slay Me
by Silent Angel
Summary: Buffy Summers moves to Amity Park with every intention of retiring. However, between Danny Phantom, increasing ghostly and demonic energy, and strange disappearances, Buffy might have to hold off on retirement to head off the apocalypse. Again. BtVSDP
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: It's... a crossover between Danny Phantom and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Yeah. Summary? After the destruction of Sunnydale, Buffy moves to Amity Park in hopes of living a cheap, peaceful life with minimal destruction and killing. But when a strange increase in attacks, both ghostly and otherwise, begins to threaten her retirement from Slaying, Buffy begins to wonder if there isn't something sinister going on. Armed with ectoplasmic weapons and a new ally in a mysterious ghost boy, Buffy's out to save the world. Again.

Or something like that. Thought I'd try to make it like the other summaries. Which might not be a good thing. Oh well.

The van pulled up outside a tall grayish house. "Ah, Buffy, are you sure this is… what you want?"

One Miss Buffy Summers paused with the van's door ajar. Smiling gently, she looked at her ex-Watcher, Giles, and nodded. "I'm the Slayer. I can't just run away from this stuff."

He sighed and looked past Buffy at the house they were about to enter. "If you're certain…"

Buffy hopped out and walked to the back of the moving van, opening the sliding door. Inside were the remains of her life in Sunnydale. It wasn't much - to tell the truth, it was mostly things she'd bought along the way to Amity Park. After all, having your entire town fall into the Hellmouth did tend to upset the whole "taking your possessions to another place" plan. She lifted a trunk and looked seriously at her newest opponent - a house that'd sold for an amount usually reserved for apartments.

She glanced back at Giles as he struggled with a similar trunk. "Hey Giles? Did you ever find out what was wrong with this place? I mean, I can imagine the price being this low in Sunnydale, but… This being not in California so not anywhere near centers of demony activity, you'd think something this nice would be more expensive." Her nose wrinkled. "Maybe the basement floods."

Giles shook his head. "No… From what I gather, there's light demonic activity at worst. The local residents don't seem to notice anything at all, though there is some superstitious rot about ghosts."

"You don't… believe in ghosts?" Buffy asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Why does that surprise me… It's not like we've dealt with them before or anything."

Giles set the trunk down and frowned. "Ghosts – spirits – require massive amounts of energy to penetrate from the netherworld into ours. The Hellmouth, being a place full of mystical energies converging, can provide that, but other towns..."

"Don't really have huge apocalypse-y powers going for them?" Buffy asked, throwing open the front door. "I guess you're right. There's gotta be something strange here. I mean, look at this place. If you get past the neighbor's UFO on their roof, it's practically perfect."

Perfect. After spending most of her life killing demons and averting the end of the world, living in a fairly demonless town was perfect. Having a big house was a definite perk, but Buffy was just glad she could finally retire. She smiled. Who knew? Maybe she'd just go out patrolling ever other night and maybe she wouldn't even run into anything. She definitely deserved it. No other Slayer had lived as long as she had. She got the feeling that it wasn't the sort of job you were supposed to spend very long in. It kinda started to drag you down after not too long and then… well… and then you made with the dying.

Not that she hadn't died. To be fair, she'd died twice. The first time was when she was still in high school and still in love with a souled vampire. That time it was just a simple matter of CPR to bring her back – something most Slayers would never have gotten. The second time though…

Buffy hauled the last box up the stairs, intent on picking out a room for herself. In the next couple months, she hoped her friends and sister would begin arriving, but for now it'd just be her. Giles was leaving for England almost immediately.

She was just opening the door at the end of the hall when something blue shot out of the box. Immediately she dropped it and backed away.

The blue thing coalesced into the shape of a man with overalls on… floating several inches over the floor. He looked at her and raised his arms. "BEWARE! For I am the Box Ghost, master of all things rectangular and cardboard!"

Buffy blinked. "Giles? Remember what you said about the ghost stuff being dumb? Well…" She glance at the now opened box on the ground. "How do I kill one?"

"Leave that to me."

The Slayer jumped as another ghost flew in. This one had snow-white hair and glowing green eyes. Along with his outfit – a black and white suit of some sort with a ghostly-looking D in the center of his chest – he was definitely the more attractive of the two ghosts by far. Buffy frowned. And he was definitely way too young for death. Not that she'd been any older when she started staking vampires, but she was still alive, even if it'd been close more than once since then.

Young or not though, this ghost seemed to know what he was doing. A blast of green shot from his hand and struck the Box Ghost dead-on, knocking the being back into the wall. Buffy stared. Through the ghost, she could see a brand-new hole in her wall. _Well, I guess that answers why the house was so cheap,_ she thought.

"All right, Box Ghost. It's back to the Ghost Zone for you!" The newer ghost whipped out what looked like a high-tech thermos and pressed a button. Almost instantly, the Box Ghost was sucked in with one final cry of 'Beware!' before the young ghost snapped the lid on. He smiled apologetically at Buffy. "Sorry about your wall. The city will fix up major damage, but it'd probably be easier to deal with that yourself."

Buffy nodded hesitantly. Sure, he just saved her, but lots of things saved her just so she wouldn't kill them later when they did something really evil. Of course, he was already dead… She tilted her head. "So… Do you have a name too? Like… Shoots through walls to save Buffy Ghost?"

He laughed. "No. My name's Phantom. Danny Phantom. Nice to meet you, Buffy. You're new here, right?"

"Yeah, how'd you guess?"

"The moving van out front might've been a clue." He bent over and picked up the box she'd dropped earlier. "Here."

Buffy took the box. "Thanks." He started to float away, but she grabbed his wrist, wincing at the sudden cold. "Hey! Ummm… Is that sort of thing normal here?"

He looked back, eyebrow raised. "You _are_ new." He shook his head. "Normally ghosts don't attack inside homes, but you'll probably see one or two attacks in the next week if you go outside a lot. More if you're outside after dark."

"So you're like… a ghosty protecting the people person?"

He shrugged. "Something like that. I'm sort of Public Enemy Number One, but that's more of a misunderstanding than anything else."

Once again he tried to leave, but Buffy still had one more question. "Is there… any way humans can fight ghosts?"

He stopped. "You want to fight ghosts?"

Here it was. She didn't really want to reveal that she was the Slayer, even to a ghost, but on the other hand… not being able to fight would really bite. She settled for somewhere in the middle with a casual tone of voice. "Back in California, I worked with the supernatural a lot. Usually it was stuff like demons and vampires though. We didn't really have a big ghost problem."

Phantom hesitated. It'd be nice to have some help, but as far as he knew ghosts were the only things that had a real chance of fighting ghosts without special equipment. Besides… Vampires? Demons? Ghosts he could handle, but there was no way those sorts of things really existed.

He shook his head. "The Fentons live next door. They have a lot of ghost-hunting equipment. If you ask them to teach you, they'd probably be glad to. Now I've really got to go." _And finish Mr. Lancer's stupid report before any more ghosts have a chance to show up. _

With that, he turned intangible and disappeared through the wall, leaving a very confused Buffy behind. She turned to Giles, who was standing on the stairs. "I live next-door to ghost hunters? And I thought my life was weird."

Giles removed his glasses and rubbed at them with his shirt. "That would explain the presence of the ghosts, at the very least."

Buffy blinked. "It would?"

"Well… yes, it does." When Buffy still looked lost, he went on. "The Council keeps track of ghost hunters since their experiments tend to lend to an increase in mystical energy, which then leads to an increase in, among other things, ghost attacks. The Fentons are, or were whilst I was still affiliated with the Council, the most prominent pair of ghost hunters in North America." He replaced his glasses. "To tell the truth, I'd forgotten all about them."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "So what are these other things that come? Wait, let me guess: demons, vampires, other evil things just dying to end the world…"

"Unfortunately, yes," Giles said with a soft sigh. "Buffy, I know you came here hoping to be able to relax, and I believe you still can. Demonic activity is still relatively low in this town and, barring a sudden increase in the amount of energy drawing ghosts here, it should remain so for a while yet."

"But it's going to increase."

"I'm afraid so."

Buffy took a wooden stake from the box in her hands. "And here I thought I was going to be bored." She shook her head. "Who's up for finishing with the unpacking before we give the local vamps a big ol' Buffy hello?"

Next door, Danny Fenton was peering out the window at his new neighbor right along with his dad, Jack Fenton, one of the America's greatest ghost hunters. "I wonder what they're like," he mused.

Jack eyed the furniture warily. "I'll bet you they're infested with ghosts. Probably are ghosts." Suddenly he whipped out a strange device with what looked like a miniature satellite on the end. "I know! I'll use the Fenton Ghost Detector! Your mother and I have been working for days on this one, and this time I'm sure it'll work!" With an overly exaggerated motion, he pressed the red 'on' button in the middle.

The device hummed. "Ghost detected directly to the right. You must be an idiot if you cannot see the ghost directly to your right."

Jack looked to his right at Danny, who shrugged, and turned off the device. "Blast. I thought I'd finally gotten it to work too… Oh well, there are more traditional methods to find out if they're ghosts. Danny! Grab the Fenton Foamer! We're going in!"

Danny winced. "Ummm… Dad? Why don't we just go over and check things out first?"

Jack looked blankly at him.

"With_out _the Fenton Foamers? If they aren't ghosts, it'd be better if we don't make them mad at us like you did with the last people who lived in that house." Danny crossed his fingers and prayed that his father would listen to reason. Last time they'd been kicked off the neighbors' property after an incident with the Fenton Fisher and an ectoplasmic ray gun.

Jack nodded. "All right then. We'll just take the Fenton Fisher and…"

"MOM!"

Maddie Fenton popped her head into the room, her blue suit's hood pushed back, making her almost seem normal. "Dear, you can't try to catch the neighbors."

"Awww, but Maddie!"

"No 'buts' dear. They'll have it hard enough trying to adjust to life here without being accused of being ghosts." She flashed a quick smile. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bring them some cake."

Danny leapt to his feet. "You're going over there?"

"Of course! I'm sort of curious about them too. After all, you can't be too careful."

Danny glanced at his dad, who was already heading towards the door. "Can I come with you?"

His mother nodded, and Danny followed her outside with an inward groan. Hopefully his parents could avoid not scaring their new neighbors away. Buffy was rather pretty, after all, even if she was too old for him. Probably.


	2. Chapter 2

When the doorbell rang, Buffy was surveying the basement, where the final boxes from the move were being stored until she got around to unpacking them. Among other things, she had stakes, axes, swords, crossbows, ancient magical daggers, volumes of mystical books, and a punching bag. She thought it'd be a good idea to stock up on some more supplies. Holy water and some more crosses would be a nice start. Maybe she could even hand them out on Halloween or something to start the city protection plan.

But… that was a plan for another day. The doorbell rang again, and Buffy ran up the stairs. "Coming!" She glanced at Giles, who seemed thoroughly uninterested in answering the door. "Is opening the door too American or something?" she asked.

Giles paused in his unpacking. "I assume it's neighbors bringing cake. As you will be the one living here, Buffy, I thought it only right that you be the one to take it."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Right then." She swung open the door.

And was blasted back by a ray of green light.

"JACK!"

"DAD!"

"All right, ghost. You may have fooled my wife and son, but your ghostly mind control holds no sway over me!"

"Jack, I thought I told you to leave the weapons at home!"

Buffy groaned and tried to make sense of the picture through the front door, complete with a large man in an orange jumpsuit being yelled at by a lady wearing a blue suit. The man was holding something that looked like a gun, and the lady had a cake. She groaned again and pressed her hand against her eyes. "Giles… Next time the doorbell rings… You're getting it."

"Here."

She opened her eyes again to find a teenage boy holding out his hand. With a small smile, she took it and climbed to her feet. "Your parents?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

The teen turned red. "Yeah. Look – I'm really sorry about my dad. My parents are ghost hunters and Dad's not real good at distinguishing ghosts from just about anything else." He glanced back over. "The cake should be non-lethal though. I'm Danny Fenton by the way."

_Danny Fenton? As in the same Fentons Phantom told me to talk to?_ Buffy smiled. "No harm, no foul. I'm still all in one piece-ish, and look! I get cake!"

During this, Danny's mom finished her husband off with a swift glare and he shuffled over, looking for all the world like a sulking teenager. He looked Buffy up and down. "I'm Jack Fenton. I'm… sorry for blasting you with the ray gun."

"And?" prompted his wife.

"And it won't happen again."

Buffy looked from jumpsuit to jumpsuit and forced a quick smile. "No problem! Thanks for the cake, Mrs. Fenton."

"Please, call me Maddie."

Buffy nodded. "Right. And I'm Buffy. Buffy Summers." She eyed the cake nervously. Despite Danny's reassurance, it seemed to be rather lively for a cake. Was that a face? She took it from Maddie. _This is going in the back of the fridge. _"So you're… ummm… ghost hunters, huh? That sounds real... neat! Yup. Fighting ghosties and stuff… Sounds like a real blast."

Jack's expression immediately brightened. "See Maddie? I told you she couldn't be a ghost!" He turned to Buffy, ignoring his wife's "Of course, dear." "So you want to become a ghost hunter?"

Buffy nodded, wondering how this guy could be one of the world's premiere ghost hunters. "Yes. I think it's good to be prepared. You know, for those times you're out at night for no apparent reason and a ghost just happens to find you… I think it'd be good to have some good old-fashioned ghost hunting know-how."

Danny stared at her. "Erm… Have you considered not going out at night for no apparent reason instead?"

Maddie saved Buffy from answering that question by whipping out a pair of gloves, a thermos suspiciously like the one Phantom used, and a belt. "Of course not! Why, if we let these ghosts stop us from going about our everyday lives, then they've won!" She handed the equipment to Buffy. "I want you to have these. We've been upgrading our equipment, so these are just trial versions of equipment we already have."

Jack nodded. "The Fenton Ghost Gloves will let you handle ghosts, and they're specially made so no ghost can break free of them. The Fenton Thermos will trap ghosts, and the Fenton Specter Deflector will repel and seriously weaken any ghost that comes in contact with the person wearing it!" He wiped a tear from his eye. "This may be the proudest moment of my life."

Buffy wondered desperately where Giles was. "Right. Thanks."

After many promises to both a) visit to learn more about ghost hunting and b) report any ghostly activity before trying to use the equipment, Buffy finally managed to clear her house of Jack and Maddie. She frowned as she shut the door. Where was Danny? She remembered him looking vaguely annoyed suddenly and muttering something about a report for school before walking out of the room. _He went the wrong way for the door though… _ She shrugged. He probably just went around somehow or something.

"Are they gone?"

Buffy rounded on Giles. "Where were you? You're Mister British I-know-all-about-them!"

"Yes, well, in my opinion, you did quite admirably against them," he commented, cleaning his glasses.

Buffy rolled her eyes. "They _shot _me! When you said you know about them, I thought that meant something like 'they're normal British people'."

Giles hesitated. "The Fentons are… well-known for their… eccentricities. They did not agree with The Council on many subjects, and are generally seen as something of a disgrace to the magic community. They are heavily scientific and refuse to recognize the value of their research in relation to anything other than ghosts. However, as they are completely capable in their profession, they have been allowed to do as they like."

"So in other words, you both think what the other person does is dumb."

"Yes, mostly."

"Great."

Buffy glanced out the window. She still had a while until dark, and she wanted to get a feel for the town before nightfall. "Giles, I'm gonna go walk around for a bit, then maybe stick around for a bit of patrolling." She grabbed a stake, started towards the door and hesitated. After a moment's thought, she grabbed the Fenton Thermos and the Fenton Specter Deflector too. It'd be pretty bad if she survived the years of living on the Hellmouth only to die because of some stupid dead person without a body. Without a soul? Understandable. Without a body? That'd be just plain embarrassing. "She opened the door with a quick wave. "Bye Giles! See you in the morning."

The door closed and she looked out at the street. It seemed normal enough. "All right then. So where do people go for a little fun around here?"

Half and hour later found her no closer to finding anything like the fun little club she'd practically lived at during her high school years. However, she did manage to find the nastiest tasting food in the world at, go figure, a fast food restaurant called the Nasty Burger and a bowling alley inhabited by a bunch of jocks and their girlfriends.

Buffy rolled her eyes as she approached Amity Park's main high school. "Casper High? Originality, eat my heart out."

"Yeah, lame isn't it?"

Buffy spun around to come face to face with a girl about her age. She was pretty, with bright blue eyes and straight black hair framing her face. Buffy glanced at her clothes. Very fashionable. Too fashionable."Oh! Hi! I didn't see you there."

The girl rolled her eyes. "So what are you here for? I haven't seen you around before."

"I'm just, you know, taking a walk to try and get my bearings. Just moved and all. So… you like hanging out at the local school at dusk?" Buffy tried to surreptitiously reach for her stake. You didn't survive as the Slayer for this long without recognizing a baddie when you saw one. Honestly – why couldn't they dress like normal people? Was it really that hard?

The girl's eyes flashed yellow. "Well, you know, it helps pass the time between meals." Her eyebrows grew ridged and she smirked, pointed fangs dimpling her lips. "Try not to bore me."

Buffy pouted. "So I guess that means no instant slayage?" The vampire quirked an eyebrow in response. "Guess not." Buffy lunged forward.

Jazz Fenton stopped as she heard a loud crash from around the corner. With instincts honed by months of watching over her brother, she dashed towards the source of the noise, ready to jump in and save him the instant he needed help.

What ruined that plan for her was the fact that the fight going on involved neither ghosts nor her brother. She frowned. A girl not too much older than herself was fighting a… a… A streetlight illuminated the other girl's face. She gasped. No way – that had to be just a genetic mutation. With the teeth and all, she looked a bit like a vampire, but there was no way that could be possible. Vampires weren't real, were they? Jazz covered her eyes, certain that when she looked again, the world would be back in it's rightful order. She uncovered her eyes and frowned. Where did the mutated girl go?

"And what have we here?" The vampire asked, wrapping an arm around Jazz's waist and jerking the younger girl's head to the side, exposing her neck. "Looks tasty."

Buffy stared at her. _Crap crap crap… Why can't civilians ever do the smart thing and run away?_ She glared at the vampire. "All right, I tried playing nice." In one smooth motion she pulled her arm back and flung the stake. It grazed Jazz's side and landed in the vampire's heart. "I guess that was too boring though." The vampire disappeared in a cloud of ash.

Buffy sighed and walked over to the orange haired civilian. "Hey, you might not want to walk around this late anymore. More of those things will be coming in the next few months, and I like to keep my clients off of a first-name basis if I can."

Jazz stared. "That thing. It disappeared when you stabbed it."

"Yeah… Vampires tend to do that. Convenient really. Much better than demons. Those things? You've gotta have a shovel and a big patch of dirt handy or you'll end up dragging it all over town."

"Vampires." That stare was beginning to get creepy. "They exist?"

Buffy sighed. "Yes, vampires are real. So are demons, witches, hell dimensions, goddesses… etcetera etcetera. Don't worry though – I'm the Slayer, all right? It's, like, my job to keep the population down." She winced. "If you could keep that a secret though, it'd be a real help. I'm kind of secret identity girl and all."

Jazz didn't say anything for a few minutes. Just before Buffy started wondering if the girl was going into shock, she touched her side and looked at the blood. "Right… I should be getting home then." She smiled slightly. "You're not the first superhero in town. You'll probably meet him sooner or later –"

"You mean Danny Phantom?"

Jazz blinked. "Yeah. How'd you…?"

Buffy grinned. "Already way ahead of you. He 'rescued' me from the Box Ghost."

"Oh. Well, he'll probably help you against a lot worst than that in the next few months. But I should be going now. Thanks for your help…?"

"Buffy."

Jazz smiled. "Jazz. I live in the house with the observatory on top, if you ever need some help."

"So that's what it is. I thought it was a UFO." Buffy started walking next to Jazz. "I'm your next door neighbor. Need me to escort you home?"

"Sure. Do you want to explain those vampire things a bit more?"

Buffy grinned and handed her a bottle of holy water. "Well, first of all…"


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Several people have wondered whether this will end up being Danny/Buffy. Normally, this is the sort of thing I think is best left to be discovered, but… Well… For future reference, it will not end up being a pairing precisely. I nearly killed Sam for liking Gregor after all. Imagine what I'd do to myself if I made Danny like Buffy? Now, without further ado, onto the story!

"Ah, the sweet smell of school in the morning. We're having…" Tucker Foley sniffed, dismay instantly sweeping across his face. "Awww man! I don't smell anything! Don't tell me you gave us another grass lunch!"

Sam Manson rolled her eyes. "Not that I'd let it stop me normally, but Danny's been having enough trouble lately without the Lunch Lady showing up."

"Right. Why have so many ghosts been attacking anyway?"

A loud cough from behind them stopped the pair in their tracks. Sam looked back and cringed. "Yes, Mr. Lancer?"

The balding teacher studied the duo for a moment before shaking his head. Their conversations were always about ghosts. If only they would put as much effort into school as they did ghosts… But that was a lecture for another time. For now he had more important business to attend to. "Have you two seen Mr. Fenton? He has an appointment with our new guidance counselor. I'd hate for him to miss it. The extra credit could raise his grade to something resembling acceptable."

Sam laughed nervously. "Oh! Right! Danny… He's umm…"

"Right here, Mr. Lancer."

Danny stepped out from the boy's bathroom, where Lancer was certain he'd checked at least ten times. He sighed. How that boy managed to hide so well he'd never know. For now, all that was important was getting him to that guidance counselor. Lately even his oblivious parents were beginning to call, wondering why their son was so consistently exhausted.

Like now. The black-haired teen had shadows under his eyes and what looked like beginnings of a nasty bruise on his arm. Surely Daniel couldn't be depressed and taking out his feelings on himself? Lancer frowned. Maybe the boy needed this counselor more than he thought.

He shook his head to clear it. "There you are! Hurry up now, or you'll be late. I expect you to let Miss Summers help you."

Danny blinked. "Summers?"

"That's right – now…" Lancer rifled through a book of slang quickly. "As you young people say, let's boogie on down there."

Danny waved helplessly to Sam and Tucker as Lancer dragged him off. At least Buffy wasn't involved with evil energy-sucking ghosts. Or at least, he didn't think so. As the door closed, leaving him alone with Buffy, he wasn't so sure. She looked almost as tired as him.

Buffy raised an eyebrow at the teen standing in front of her. "Get beat up much?" she asked, indicating the bruise.

Danny nodded. "Were you up late last night? You look tired."

"Nope, slept like a log. Not that logs sleep, but you get the picture."

"Right. Me too."

Silence. Buffy glanced at the clock. "So… I'm your guidance counselor. Ummm… well… what do you need guiding on?"

"English would be good."

She made a face. "Anything more… life involving? How am I supposed to know what a bunch of dead guys were talking about when they wrote about flies buzzing around in their brains?"

He laughed. "Yeah, right. It's actually not bad when you get the hang of it though."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Sure, and I graduated college with a 4.0 average. Actually, I didn't graduate at all. I think that's a bit outside the point though, don't you?"

"Why didn't you graduate?" Danny asked.

For a moment, Buffy just thought about it. Finally she shrugged. "I guess I had more important things to do." She pulled out a sheet of paper from a folder labeled "Fenton, Daniel" and sighed. "Which it seems you think you do too. These show a dramatic drop in grades a few months into your freshman school year. What happened? Someone zap you with a brain destroyer?"

Danny shrugged. "I've been busy."

"Doing what?"

"Nothing much. Just hanging out."

The minute hand moved another sixtieth of a circle. Buffy looked at Danny. Danny looked at Buffy. Buffy pulled out a sheet of paper and smiled brightly. "So! Who's up for some tic-tac-toe?" There was more than one way to dust a vampire, as she always said.

The session was almost over, with Danny beating Buffy 21-15, when Jazz burst in. "Danny! There's a-" She glanced at Buffy. "…really big rat problem in this school! I don't think you should be here until it gets taken care of. Why don't you just go hide in the bathroom until someone comes to get rid of those things?"

Danny blinked, and Jazz coughed meaningfully. He jumped to his feet. "Right! You know how much I hate rats! I think I'll go hide." He dashed out the door.

Buffy was left behind. She raised an eyebrow. "Your brother's afraid of rats?"

Jazz laughed nervously. "It's a long story."

Buffy was about to reply when a red-haired ghost burst through the wall and perched atop Buffy's desk. "Oh look – we have a new me. You think you can do a better job of guiding these young souls than I can? Only I can make them express their deepest darkest fears! You're nothing compared to me, Penelope Spectra." She smirked. "But then, you've always been second best. Faith was always so much better at the job, and Willow had magicks you never even would have dreamed of…"

Buffy felt a familiar wave of depression try to wipe her out and rolled her eyes. "Oh puh-leaze. Do you really think that whole 'make me feel incompetent' thing is original? I can't tell you how many demons tell me every day that there's no way I'll survive to see another sunrise. Yet here I am, still living."

"Yes… living. It's hard, isn't it? Working through each day… And after experiencing heaven too…" Spectra leaned closer. "Why is it always you? They just couldn't let you go… You were so happy, but they thought you must be in torment. Didn't trust that you could possibly make it somewhere better, so they had to drag you down into this hell they call home…"

Despite her best efforts, Buffy's vision wavered and she wondered dimly whether or not she'd brought the Specter Deflector to work. She tried to reach into her bag, but the ghost just wouldn't stop talking. It was getting really annoying actually… Her vision cleared some.

"Speaking of hell, how is it? You sent Angel there, didn't you? Don't you two ever sit down and have talks about that? Or does he still not trust you enough to get close again –"

Buffy was just snapping on the Specter Deflector when a green ectoplasmic blast blew Spectra into the wall. Buffy whipped around to see Danny Phantom floating there. He didn't look happy.

"Leave her alone, Spectra!"

The female ghost glared at him. "Bertrand? Come take care of this pest."

Phantom smirked and held up his thermos. "You mean this guy? I captured him before coming here."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "There are two of them?"

"Not anymore, there aren't."

Spectra glanced from Phantom to Buffy's Specter Deflector to the ray gun Jazz seemed to have suddenly acquired. "Fine! This isn't the last you'll see of me though! And next time I'll have back-up even you'll have trouble handling, Danny Phantom!" With that, she phased out of the office through the ceiling. Phantom seemed to momentarily debate over whether he should follow her or not, but finally settled for giving Buffy a quick wave and phasing through the wall.

Buffy looked at Jazz. "You're helpless against vampires, but you carry a gun to school."

The younger girl shrugged. "It's a habit. You never know when a ghost might attack."

"Yeah, well, you should probably get into the habit of carrying crosses and holy water too. A wooden stake or two wouldn't be a bad idea either," Buffy said, casually pulling said items out of a large trunk behind her desk.

Jazz frowned. "You never got around to explaining that. What makes you think that more vampires will be attacking here?"

Buffy shrugged and threw stake at a picture of a man with a pointy, tattle-tell-looking face. It hit him dead-on, straight between the eyes. Below him, white bubble-letters proclaimed him Snyder. She glanced at Jazz. "Demons and vampires like big magic-y places. Places like that also happen to be just about the only places ghosts can appear." She shrugged. "If you have one, you'll probably get the other soon."

"Oh. Hey, what was –"

Danny walked back in, saving Buffy from the oncoming question. She mentally thanked the Powers that Be, and turned to him. "So how were those rats?

He hesitated. "Rats?"

"The ones you had to go hide in the bathroom from," Jazz prompted.

For a moment, it didn't seem like he was going to catch the hint, but finally he brightened and nodded. "Right! Those rats! They, uh, cleared out when that ghost attacked."

Buffy looked between them and sighed. Was the whole family insane? She glanced at the clock. Oh well. "In any case, our hour is up, Danny. You're free to go."

Danny grinned. "Thanks, Miss Summers."

She smiled back. "Call me Buffy. Everyone does."

As soon as he and his sister were gone, she sunk down at her desk. From now on, she'd better have more protection than just a ghost-protection belt in her bag. If it hadn't been for Danny Phantom, she would… Well, she probably would have been fine, but there was always the chance that something bad _could_ have happened. That wasn't an acceptable risk for someone who'd been on the job as long as she'd been. Just because the job was now vampire _and_ ghost slaying didn't mean she had an excuse to relax her guard on either front.

Meanwhile, at lunch, Danny recounted the counseling session dutifully to Sam and Tucker.

"So let me get this straight: you just sat there and played tic-tac-toe for an hour?" Sam asked, biting into a mouthful of salad. Apparently the school board finally had the bright idea to serve pizza, which kept the regular kids happy, and salads, which kept the ultra-recyclo-vegetarians happy. Too bad the new meal plan was only for Mondays.

Danny shrugged. "Yeah. It seemed like she didn't want to talk to me any more than I wanted to talk to her." He frowned. "It was weird though. When Spectra attacked, I heard her say something about Buffy sending someone to hell… What do you think that meant?"

Tucker swallowed his last bite of pizza. "I don't know, but it's not like it worked, right? I mean, you said she was putting on the Specter Deflector when you got there."

"I guess…"

Sam raised an eyebrow but changed the subject. "Hey, Tucker, don't you have an appointment with her too?"

The boy grinned. "Sure do! I caught sight of her walking in this morning and man is she fine! I just need the right angle."

Danny and Sam exchanged looks and smiled. "Well, you could always talk to her about your obsession with technology," Danny suggested.

Sam nodded. "Or how you're trying to get a date with a woman almost a decade older than you."

"What can I say? She called me in. I'm just gifted."

The worst voice he could think of answered him. "Gifted in what, loserdom?" Dash laughed. The jock grinned. "I heard there's been some attacks in the newspaper. Maybe if I get lucky, I'll read about you guys tomorrow… in the obituaries!"

Danny raised an eyebrow at him. "Read? I've heard of optimism, but that's just unrealistic."

Sam rolled her eyes and turned to leave, only to run into Paulina. The pink-wearing girl jerked away. "EW! It touched me! What if her unpopularity rubs off on me?"

Sam's expression darkened. "Don't you think I should be the one complaining? Your mindless conformity might be contagious."

Tucker, in no danger of being beat up or suddenly involved in a catfight, sighed. It was turning out to be a normal day in the hell they called Casper High.


	4. Chapter 4

"I said no ghosts in the school! What happened to that?"

Vlad Plasmius raised an eyebrow at the skinny little girl before him. With brown-blonde hair and a spattering of freckles across her nose, she was hardly an intimidating presence. Even with spikes of power arcing about her, she still barely registered a blip on his "beings to watch out for" radar. However, when the room temperature started to soar until even his ghostly chill couldn't protect him, he backed down. "She was acting on her own."

"Well stop her, if it's within your powers to do so, and if not, let me." She flicked her hair over her shoulder and glared back down at the papers in front of her. "Or did you not hear me the first time I told you that Summers was hired as school counselor?"

Plasmius rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, and she's the Slayer. Terrifying. How exactly were you planning on destroying Jack Fenton again?"

"Ending the world should work," she muttered.

He stared. And stared. Then, suddenly getting it, he burst out laughing. "Ha! Ha ha ha! What a kidder!" Still smiling, he tossed a relatively weak ball of ectoplasmic energy into the air. "Now really. How are you going to do it?"

For a moment she made no response, merely scribbling down a few notes and flipping the page she was working on over. She frowned and signed her name on the back. "The Anagogic demons are refusing the treatise… Remind me to kill them later." She shrugged and shuffled the paper under several others. After another moment of silence, she looked up. "Oh, you're still here?"

He nodded, trying hard not to roll his eyes again. He wasn't sure he succeeded.

She continued, "Questioning my ability to hold up on my end of the deal?"

"You haven't been very forthcoming with the details, you'll have to admit, Angela."

Said girl stood, eyes narrowing. The paper in her hands furled up and developed quite a nice tan. "Could you maybe, I don't know, trust that I know what I'm doing?"

"You may be a witch, but that doesn't mean your plans are fail-proof," Plasmius said, completely unfazed. "I just need to know the details behind this plan of yours. In return for the full cooperation of the ghosts of Amity Park, that's a small price to pay."

The temperature hovered there at just under the point where the paper would have no choice but to combust for a few more seconds then dropped back down to normal levels as she returned to her seat, sighing. "Of course. But, I have not had the full cooperation of the ghosts of Amity Park, now have I, Plasmius?"

She smiled. "And, without that cooperation, how can I be certain that my plans will go… well… according to plan?" Eyeing the glowing purple orb in his hands, the smile melted into a smirk. "And, of course, the whole threaten me thing would work a lot better if I didn't have that spell around Mr. Fenton protecting him from attacks, both direct and indirect. You kill me, you kill your chances of ever killing him, figuratively or literally. So think of it this way – even if I don't ruin him when I'm done, you'll be able to again. Isn't that enough?"

Vlad considered killing her anyway. She was impertinent and rash, and her secrecy was merely a hunk of poison topping on the cake. On the other hand… She wasn't entirely stupid. As long as he didn't have to spend much time in her company, aiding her might not be such a bad idea. And, of course, as she'd already pointed out, it couldn't hurt. He only stood to win. He cast one last longing gaze at the ectoplasm in his hand and let it dissipate. "Very well then. I will speak with Miss Spectra about today's disruption." He offered her a quick bow and swept out of the room.

Outside, he blasted a hole in the wall, startling a waiting representative Polgara demon,. That is, assuming startling it meant causing it to skewer him through where his heart should have been, had he not gone intangible. He glared at the demon and shot another blast through the demon's heart. Unfortunately for the demon, it was not a ghost, so the sudden absence of part of its heart caused quite a bit more damage.

"Bloody demons."

Once sure no more jumpy demons would stab, skewer, or otherwise perform moves that might incapacitate a human, he concentrated briefly. In barely a second, he was once more Vlad Masters, billionaire extraordinaire. He whipped out his cell phone. "Hello? Yes. Bring me to the school. I want to request a meeting with Miss Summers, the school counselor. And let Maddie know I'll be stopping by for tea." He closed the cell phone with a snap and stepped into the waiting limo. Time to see what was so scary about this 'Slayer'.

Across town, in Casper High, one Tucker Foley removed his hat, smoothed back his hair, and replaced the hat carefully. He kissed his PDA good luck and stepped into the room.

Buffy glanced up at her latest student – Tucker, if her file was correct – and smiled. Outwardly, that is. Inwardly she groaned. His record was much like Danny's. Suddenly during the beginning of your freshman year, grades dropped, absences increased, and something noticeably _changed_. Her job, should she choose to accept, was to find out what that something was and fix it.

She looked over Tucker's file again – no trace of family issues, no genetics… The symptoms of the something were less noticeable in Tucker's case than in Danny's. Maybe that was something to start on. Buffy gently dropped the file to the desk and folded her arms over it. "Hey, Tucker. Congrats on being my third customer today."

Tucker grinned and sat down in front of her desk. "It's nice to meet you, Buffy."

She blinked. "First name already? Jeez – and here I thought it'd take at least a run-through of the old 'please call me' routine."

Tucker laughed nervously. Was that good or bad? Did that mean she wanted him to keep calling her Buffy? If he switched to Miss Summers now, it'd be definitely noticeable and definitely awkward. Asking would work, though only a loser would do that. No one as suave and debonair as Tucker Foley would ever resort to asking.

He asked. "So by that, you did mean you wanted me to keep calling you Buffy, right? Because I'm totally cool with it if you don't. Just let me know."

She smiled. "Buffy's fine. Anything with my last name makes me feel like I'm back in high school."

"Oh. Good. I mean right."

"So, Tucker, your grades, among other things, have been slipping lately. So far I know, it involves either Danny or extreme coincidence, and I don't believe in coincidence. Following that… what are you two up to, and does it involve school rat infestations?"

Tucker struggled to make the connection between rats and his recent ghost-hunting and failed. "Rats? You do mean nasty things with tails, right?"

"Yup, unless you're worried about another kind. I didn't find out which kind it was." She paused. "Actually, I never even thought of that. Is Danny afraid of rat people? Cuz I'm pretty sure that whole conversation before would've made a whole lot more sense in that light. Rat people? Not pretty."

Tucker ran through the possible scenarios in his head and settled on the rats being related to some stupid story of Jazz's. But saying Danny was afraid of rats wouldn't really be lying – there was the whole secret to consider. Danny would definitely not be happy if someone were to let it out. So, conscience assuaged, Tucker nodded. "Danny definitely doesn't like rats, and I'm not too fond of them myself."

"Enough that a rat infestation would make you late to English periodically, drop your grades, and result in heightened secrecy and a definite change in social patterns?"

"What can I say? They're nasty. And speaking of nasty, would you like to get to know me better by having lunch with me at the Nasty Burger this Saturday?"

Buffy stared at him for a few minutes longer before closing his file and standing. "In that case," she started, completely ignoring his question, "I guess I have a bit of hunting to do. Tell you what – I'll go chase down these rats, show them to you to make sure their the right ones, and then you, Danny, and Samantha can all get back to your exciting educational lives."

Tucker was saved from replying by the sudden entrance of one tall, well-built man with white hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Miss Summers, I presume?" he asked, closing the door behind him. "How fortunate that you're in. I was worried I might have to wait." Then, as if only just noticing Tucker, he gasped. "And if it isn't… what was your name again? Well if it isn't one of young Daniel's little friends! I do hope I'm not interrupting."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to know you?"

"Well of course not yet. How silly of me not to introduce myself. I am Vlad Masters, one of the richest men in the world. I'm an old college friend of the Fenton's, and when I heard young Daniel had a new counselor… well, after the last one, I just had to stop by to see for myself."

"The last one?" Buffy thought back to the hiring process. "Didn't she turn out to be crazy?"

"Mentally unbalanced was the way I believe the school administration put it," Vald agreed. He considered pointing out that Penelope Spectra was also a ghost, but that would be insulting the Slayer's intelligence and, on the off-chance she really didn't already know, it would seriously annoy Angela if he went around calling the Slayer's attention to Amity Park's ghost infestation.

Buffy considered the chances that there were two guidance counselors named Penelope Spectras running around, one a mental ghost, and the other just mental.

"So, Buffy – you don't mind if I call you Buffy, do you? – why don't we go somewhere and do lunch? I'd so love to hear about your previous counseling experience, you know, so I can assure myself that I can trust you with Daniel's care." He glanced at Tucker. "Are you still here? Why don't you run along to class – wouldn't want you to get in trouble with your teacher."

Tucker glanced at Buffy, who nodded absently. "I'll see you again next week – don't worry, I won't forget the rats."

Tucker trudged out the door.

Inside, Buffy started rifling through her files. The next student was due in fifteen minutes – her name was Star. Buffy shook her head – someone didn't like their daughter. A name like Star was like a death warrant – be pretty, popular, and brainless, or be the butt of every joke for your entire school career. Based on the problems – low grades, depression, and a severe lack of original thought, Star seemed to have gone with the former.

Vlad coughed.

Buffy glanced up. "Oh, you're still here?"

"Well, yes. It would seem so."

She smiled. "Look, it's sweet that you'd come all the way out here from… wherever it is you live, which I'm hoping isn't just around the corner or that wouldn't sound nearly as good as it should have, but I think that if you don't trust the school enough to hire a good counselor, you should talk to his parents, not me."

He frowned. "I thought lunch would be a good place to discuss Daniel's current lack of attention and his future."

"Sorry, Mr. Masters, but that's something I can't discuss without the student's permission. And since I'm not currently looking for a boyfriend, fifty years older than me or otherwise, I think I'm going to say no." She turned to the files on her desk. "Now, since you've already sent one student out of here before the session was up, why don't you leave before another one comes and has her session wasted too. I do have a job, in case you haven't noticed."

Vlad glared at her. "Very well then, Ms. Summers. I'm very sorry to hear that."

Danny stretched before taking his place across from Tucker and Sam in their booth at the Nasty Burger and eyeing his friend. "I take it she said no?"

Tucker sighed and dropped his head into his hands. "Worse. Vlad showed up and asked her too."

Sam cut in, "Wait, this Buffy's going on a date with Vlad?"

Danny and Sam's faces twisted with disgust, but Tucker only sighed again and hugged his PDA. "At least I can always count on you, baby."

Author's Note: Erg. First chapter to be forced out. I haven't been watching much Buffy lately, which makes the writing a bit harder… I should probably throw in some more Danny Phantom to my TV schedule too… sweatdrop So what have I been watching? House! huggles He's so hot! happy swooning sigh But… ah well. I'm not writing House fanfiction, now am I? Back to the Danny Buffy stuff. But yeah – so I apologize if this chapter completely sucks. I hope it doesn't, but since I'm the author and tend to be biased in a "Gah, I suck" direction, I can't tell if it really does or not.


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